Brandon Smith, Publisher of EE Times-China, said: "China's fabless industry is moving from its infancy to growth stage. According to our Survey, 40 percent of companies have been established for five to 10 years, while 34 percent have been in business for more than 10 years. China is now the world's third largest chip design center, with total sales of 62.168 billion yuan in 2012. IC design has always been the fastest growing segment of China's semiconductor industry, and its share in the industry has been increasing consistently."

According to the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) of China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the fabless industry targets to achieve annual sales of 110 billion yuan by 2015, accounting for one-third of China's IC industry. However, local IC design houses still lag behind the world's top fabless in terms of scale: the Survey indicates 78 percent of respondent companies have annual sales below US$50 million.

At today's China Fabless Awards presentation ceremony in Shanghai, Professor Wei Shaojun, General Director of CSIA-ICCAD was the keynote speaker and shared his thoughts on how China's semiconductor industry can move up to a new level. Top executives from leading fabless and upstream companies were also invited to participate in the panel discussion on China's growing role in the global semiconductor and electronics industry.

As for applications, the proportion of China-designed ICs used in consumer electronics increases to 60 percent, compared with 50 percent in 2012; mobile phones, tablet PCs and set-top-boxes remain the main applications. Ratio of computer, telecom and other applications has all dropped slightly. All this matches the focus of China's electronics industry. With its shorter product life cycle compared with other industry segments, consumer electronics will see continued growth in IC demand. More and more fabless companies now pay close attention to consumer electronics applications.

The Survey also shows that more China IC design houses use mainland foundries, with its proportion rising from 80 percent in 2012 to 88 percent this year, and EE Times-China believes this is mainly due to stronger capability of local foundries. Companies that use SMIC and Huahong Grace increase to 24 percent and 17 percent, respectively (2012: 20 percent and 16 percent).

When contracting foundries, fewer fabless companies say "cost" is a major challenge (dropping from 72 percent to 54 percent). Owing to their design capability limitations, IP library is an important consideration when choosing foundries. As many as 28 percent of local IC design houses indicate "insufficient IP library" as a major challenge when working with foundries.

Improvement in process technology has a big impact on China fabless' operations. As design-to-manufacture issues and manufacturability affect yield and cost, more China IC design houses find "communication with foundry" a big challenge (increasing to 24 percent from last year's 11 percent). Also, as smaller design process technologies are used for digital ICs, more design challenges are seen. For example, 20 percent of companies state "signal integrity" as a challenge faced during the design process, compared with just 5 percent in 2012.

EE Times-China also announced the winners of the sixth China Fabless Awards, which were selected through voting by China's system design engineers, fabless companies participating in the China Fabless Survey, and EE Times-China analysts.

For more information about Global Sources, please visit the company's corporate site (http://www.corporate.globalsources.com). You can also view the company's latest developments on Facebook and Twitter (/globalsources).

About Global Sources

Global Sources is a leading business-to-business media company and a primary facilitator of trade with Greater China.

The core business facilitates trade between Asia and the world using English-language media such as online marketplaces (GlobalSources.com), print and digital magazines, sourcing research reports, private sourcing events, and trade shows.

More than 1 million international buyers, including 95 of the world's top 100 retailers, use these services to obtain product and company information to help them source more profitably from overseas supply markets. These services also provide suppliers with integrated marketing solutions to build corporate image, generate sales leads and win orders from buyers in more than 240 countries and territories.

Global Sources' other businesses provide Chinese-language media to companies selling to and within Greater China. These services include online web sites, print and digital magazines, seminars and trade shows. In mainland China, Global Sources has a network of more than 30 office locations and a community of more than 4 million registered online users and magazine readers of its Chinese-language media.

Now in its fifth decade, Global Sources has been publicly listed on the NASDAQ since 2000.

About eMedia Asia Limited

eMedia Asia Limited is a joint venture between Global Sources (60.1%) and United Business Media's EE Times Group (39.9%).

eMedia Asia provides 500,000-plus technology decision-makers throughout Asia and China with access to a multichannel media network. Through its technical events, publications and online network, eMedia Asia leads in providing the region's electronics community with the business and technical information they need to remain competitive.

Chip Design is a subset of electrical engineering, encompassing the particular logic and circuit design techniques required to design integrated circuits, or ICs. ICs consist of miniaturized electronic components built into an electrical network on a monolithic semiconductor substrate by photolithography.

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